Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 52m

Umm, that's a "take" I guess 🤷‍♂️

From Wikipedia: Christianity
Baptized in his youth, Jefferson became a governing member of his local Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, which he later attended with his daughters.[341] Jefferson, however, spurned Biblical views of Christianity.[342] Influenced by Deist authors during his college years, Jefferson abandoned orthodox Christianity after his review of New Testament teachings.[343][344] Jefferson has sometimes been portrayed as a follower of the liberal religious strand of Deism that values reason over revelation.[345] Nonetheless, in 1803, Jefferson asserted, "I am Christian, in the only sense in which [Jesus] wished any one to be".[220]

Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 1h

Dammit, I have never been a member of any political party. I just joined @greenparty.org.uk .
I might not agree with all of their policies right now, but honesty and straight talk on major issues (especially from @zackpolanski.bsky.social) is very refreshing.
This can only be a force for good 💚

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 9h

Cardiff will be the first UK city to introduce a surcharge for oversized SUVs and trucks, "while very large vehicles – those over 3,500kg – will be excluded from residential permits entirely."

Cardiff set to tackle SUV 'carspreading' in UK first

Cardiff Council is set to become the first local authority in the UK to introduce higher parking charges for SUVs and other heavy vehicles, in a move campaigners say will make city streets safer and f...

nation.cymru

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Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 1d

Similar to what is happening in New Zealand: banks lending cheap money to farms to get off diesel. Reduced outgoings + more income = better business ☀️⚡️
xenetwork.org/ets/episodes...

[Episode #256] – Electric Farming in New Zealand | The Energy Transition Show

What can the world learn about the potential for the energy transition from the world’s first all-electric farm in New Zealand?

xenetwork.org

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Matt Round @mattround.com · 1d

OpenAI’s strategy is very clear, it’s trying to get people - especially young people - so reliant on its products intellectually & emotionally (& now sexually!) that going without them becomes unthinkable. And they need signs of that strategy working to keep the funding flowing in

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Jason Rabinowitz @airlineflyer.net · 3d

I, for one, welcome our new Chinese vehicle safety regulation overlords.

WIRED @wired.com · 3d

Proposed regulations in China would mean the end of flush handles on car doors, with precious little time to roll out the changes. www.wired.com/story/new-ru...

New Rules Could Force Tesla to Redesign Its Door Handles. That’s Harder Than It Sounds

Proposed regulations in China would mean the end of flush handles on car doors, with precious little time to roll out the changes.

www.wired.com

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George Gantsoudes @pedsortho.bsky.social · 3d

Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died.
While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....

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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 3d

The right-wing campaign group that helped topple Roe v Wade in the US is now working to roll back abortion laws in the UK, with the help of Nigel Farage.

Its first step? Trying to create a debate around "free speech"
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

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Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 4d

https://media2.giphy.com/media/Deo7wNuvi0DpK8KoTt/200.gif

media2.giphy.com

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JohnWest_JAWS @johnwestjaws.bsky.social · 4d

These 2 speeches, which, as Nick points out, on the same day, precede what Gill has pled guilty to by 4 years, are more damning for Farage as they also precede Brexit.

All European secret services would have been alarmed by this & would/should have been investigating.

1/

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 4d

Every day is a good day to point out that 92% of Reform's donations were found to come from figures and groups linked to the fossil fuel industry. @desmog.com

Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Has Accepted £2.3 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests, Climate Deniers, and Polluters Since 2019 Election

Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations...

www.desmog.com

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Danger, ghosts etc. Mudford @danmud.bsky.social · 4d

The economics of self-releasing music as physical media, a thread.
My first self-released CD is SEA OTTERS by The Bionics, an album of Not-Quite-Techno made in a very analogue way, and on our Bandcamp page along with 17 back catalogue treats.
thesonsofsilence1.bandcamp.com/music

The Sons of Silence

Formed 1995 as offshoot from O Yuki Conjugate. Daniel Mudford, Joe Lamb, Pete Woodhead, Andrew Hulme. Releases on The Leaf Label: Suited + Booted, Spring Forward/Fall Back, Silence FM Film soundtrac...

thesonsofsilence1.bandcamp.com

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Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 4d

Ooh, good spot! Done 👍

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KimBo @zapperfan7.bsky.social · 6d

On #BBCQT - Fiona Bruce said that the audience and public didn't want to press Reform UK on their dodgy links to Russia.

I disagree.

RT if you agree it's in the public interest for Reform to explain about their links to Russian money and bribery!

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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 6d

#BBCQT

Always bring the receipts.

Happy birthday to my friend and colleague Nigel Farage aka Mr Brexit.

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Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 6d

This is great - more of this please. 20 MPH is plenty outside schools 👍www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester...

Cheshire West to cut speed limit outside 18 schools and colleges - full list - Cheshire Live

Most will be reduced to 20mph

www.cheshire-live.co.uk

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Skipai Otter @skipai.bsky.social · 10d

Everyone in the UK that has had to use this service should be phoning up their MP office to demand an explanation why a law set out (OSA) did not have adequate protections of said data.

Phone calls
Emails
Actual visits to their office.

John Scott-Railton @jsrailton.bsky.social · 10d

NEW: breach of Discord age verification data.

Including some users passports & DLs

Age verification is a badly implemented data grab wrapped in a moral panic.

Mark my words, as age verification mandates expand, we'll end up more surveilled and less secure. 1/

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Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 7d

I have mixed feelings about London, but oh boy railway arch cafes 😍

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LeithMotive @leithmotive.bsky.social · 7d

Charles Amos is the legalise incest guy. Insane they didn't do due diligence. www.thetimes.com/article/8c9a...

Meet the young Tories dreaming of a bright blue future

The Conservatives know they have a problem with Gen Z voters. At the party conference, The Times met a new breed of activists who are embracing the challenge

www.thetimes.com

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Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 7d

Unreal! My Avant West Coast train to Euston actually arrived on time this morning. Not vaguely on time, but *exactly*! I feel like I woke up in Switzerland or something...

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meri sand @merisand.bsky.social · 7d

I know people are quoting his tweets & people remember Pizza Gate, but I feel like the fact that he authored *this* absolute nightmare went under the radar. It praises Pinochet & Franco, declares a lot of America unhuman...
www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-hor...

The Horrifying Fascist Manifesto Endorsed By J.D. Vance

A disturbing book plans a ruthless total war against the “unhuman” left.

www.currentaffairs.org

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Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 7d

What's Welsh for "boondoggle"? 🙄

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Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 8d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 8d

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter

Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

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Paul Barnfather @clanger9.bsky.social · 9d

One of them was a nun! This story really does have everything.
Here's a Wayback link for the subscriptionally-challenged: web.archive.org/web/20251007...

Peruvian bishop accused of having 17 lovers exposed by cleaning lady

Ciro Quispe López has handed in his notice to Pope Leo after an investigation by the Vatican over claims he had a string of lovers including a nun

web.archive.org

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